“Facebook just sounds like a drag. In my day, seeing pictures of people’s vacations was considered a punishment.” – Betty White Consider this yours. You’ve done something. I don’t know what, but you’ve done something to deserve this. It’s no secret that my love for side streets has blossomed since I’ve moved to Europe. Winding, […]
Travel
How to Play With Your Friend’s Child When You Don’t Speak the Same Language
Bring a gift. I don’t know. Candy. A video game; how much do they cost these days? A stuffed animal – perhaps a small white lamb with an orange-and-green scarf around its neck and a four leaf clover stamped on its ear. ‘Cause lambs are symbols of Ireland, you know. Where daddy’s former host sister […]
- Food Culture
- ...
When Worlds Collide
Grow up in America and you might equate potato pancakes with Hanukkah. Here in Germany, however, potato pancakes – or Kartoffelpuffers – are eaten year round by all; usually at streetmarkets, enjoyed with a glass of cold wine or beer. In Cologne, where we’re spending the day, they call ’em Schnibbelkuchens. Me? I call ’em […]
The Thai-point of a Rainy Dublin Day
It’s late February in Dublin. The days are sometimes sunny, sometimes grey and wet. On days of the grey/wet variety I get the most out of my Dublin Bus Rambler Pass. I stare out the slick windows, at the lights, the raindrops, the people, the damp borders of the Green. My body is here: [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dkaxDLeNW5g&hl=en_US&fs=1&] […]
What Good is Sitting All Alone in Your Room?
You know how it goes. Move abroad, start making glittering plans for all of the new international trips you’re going to take. After all, Thailand/Russia/Peru were never so close before! Then: Work. Life. School. Life. Work. School. Or in my case: School. School. School. You wouldn’t think that having class for only 6 hours a […]
Your 84-Word Mini Berlin Culture Lesson
There is an extensive railway system – underground U-bahns and rapid transit S-bahns. You buy a ticket to ride at a machine near the entrance of the station, and then you take the ticket to another machine on the train tracks to validate it. There are no barricades between the ticket machine and the validation […]
Your 304-Word Vietnamese Mini Culture Lesson
The traffic in Viet Nam never rests. Motorbikes rev their engines at the stoplights – so many they appear to be contestants in a grand prix. When the signal comes, they careen through the narrow streets from what seems like several directions at once. Cars and pedestrians exist only as obstacles for their frenetic racecourse. If there are […]
Hoi An: An Old Town for You, a New Obsession for Me
There’s too much. There’s just too much. We’ve been here in Hoi An, an old city in Central Viet Nam, for 2 days and my mind just teems with images, smells and sounds. How can I write, though, when there are white rose wontons wrapped in delicate rice paper to be eaten? When there are […]
Duplicity
We arrived in Danang this afternoon; flight 4 of our 10-flight itinerary down. It’s only about 50 minutes from Hanoi to Danang but we soon discovered that the climate changed dramatically – cool and romantic in Hanoi; sultry in Danang. Upon feeling the first fat drops of sweat trickle down my nose, I steeled myself […]
A Cab Ride in Hanoi
It takes us maybe 20 minutes to get tired of the Ho Chih Minh museum. Sean was done the second an official back at the Mausoleum asked us where we’re from. I, on the other hand, was fine with the security checks, fine with the questions (“Obama!” said the official when I answered), and intrigued […]